


So Early, Early in the Spring.

by Zigzagwanderer



Series: Tomorrow was our Golden Age. [20]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dogs, Post-Fall (Hannibal), References to Illness, References to nightmares, Vakkrehejm 'verse, domestic angst, toughing out the tough times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 15:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14476143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: Comes after Erased Duet. Will and Hannibal are living together as Eirik and Thom Buckley on Vakkrehejm, an island in the Sarvia Archipelago, in the chilly Baltic sea. H is recovering from illness he discovered he had after the Fall. Will is having nightmares about that, plus the past. There are adjustments to be made.





	So Early, Early in the Spring.

**Author's Note:**

> Im on tumblr!! Although no-one can find me apparently!!!!! Try zigzag-wanderer (still falling... Is the title.)xxxxx

“Uh, so I see that your blond friend’s brother has a gig in Bordeaux.”

Hannibal elbows Will and his laptop out of the way, hands flouring ghosts up into the air.

“Good morning is the more traditional salutation.”

“Uh, yeah. Mornin’.” Will brushes back Hannibal’s fringe but doesn’t kiss him; instead he picks up scraps from the counter-top, and forces them all into his mouth at once, looking straight and sleepily at Hannibal while he swallows the offcuts down. 

“Deplorable manners,” Hannibal frowns, carrying a tray of loaves out to the clay oven Will has built for him in the garden. 

But Will’s scavenging is acceptable, after two days of near abstention. 

It is early, and Vakkrehejm is brume-blinded and bloomed with dew.  
Hannibal muses out over the luring, misty channels. One could induce sleep deprivation quite easily in a subject, then chart the dwindling flows of serotonin, the subsequent drowning of any and all appetites. 

Then Hannibal remembers that it is Will’s desires he is thinking about damming, and closes the door, firmly, on that particular laboratorial endeavour.

Will, as if in reproach, has brought the tiny glazed dishes of cheeses and fish and cloudberry curd out to the table, unasked. He yawns and knots his robe, then he sits, stretching his legs out, and Hannibal covets the very bones of his ankles. 

He considers fetching a blanket, although Will is no more an invalid than he himself is.

“That sourdough smell. That hidden sharpness,” Will mutters into the collaring folds of flannel, “it’s kind of all wrong, but it still makes my mouth water.”  
He huddles his shoulders down. “Just like you.” 

Hannibal almost drips tea onto the stitched cherry-blossom trees of the tablecloth. 

“Yeast and lactic acid bacteria. The starter cannot be rushed,” he states briskly. “Time is a necessary ingredient. The key to success is a stable colony of organisms, working together.”

The dogs come then, to where the meat is, rosy and organised on the long narrow plate. “Just like us,” Will tells them.

The boys circle as winsomely as Conn can manage, seeing as he is a giant, a bear-dog, a god-in-the-wild.

“So,” Will continues, after a while. “Bordeaux?”  
“You truly wish to visit the Capitole? To hear Antony Linna perform solo cello?”

Of course, Hannibal would know all the details. 

“Yeah. No. Sorry. I realise it isn’t an option right now.” Will rubs at his forehead. “I just…You travel. Have travelled, since you got here. And I don’t mean your appointments at the clinic.” 

Hannibal does visit the mainland. There is the financial business of fugitives to conduct, if nothing else.  
And thrice he has been away to hunt. The particulars have not been discussed in detail, although Will has full culinary knowledge of the results. 

“I just…I suppose maybe I could do with a trip away from the archipelago,” Will says, reluctantly. 

Hannibal stops setting Will’s plate with jewels of preserved fruit. 

He becomes still. 

Will has not looked at the surrounding straits since he came outside.

The dream is becoming frequent, now. Repetitive in its macabre ugliness.  
Will, in water which is not water, sinking amongst abnormal growths of increasing grotesquery. 

The remission of Hannibal’s illness has not yet put Will back on dry land, it would seem. 

A soporific has been suggested; Will was afraid, Hannibal saw, and told him that drugs would only make the nightmares worse.

Will was wondering if Hannibal would administer the opiates to him anyway.  
Hannibal stares at Will and wonders why he wouldn’t.

He looks at his own hand, upon the linen.  
There is no blade in it.  
No poised and poisoned needle.  
No welcoming rope.  
Is it possible that he is, instead, holding a leash of infirmity?  
Of dependence? Can love be twisted into just such a restraint?

Hannibal puts down the antique spoon and wants to sweep the compositionally correct crockery and ceramic cruet from the table and onto the flagstones. Crack the oven apart and scatter the coals. 

Take Will and run with him through entire cities.  
Make those cities weep. Make them tremble.  
Make them bleed, as monsters should. 

“I apologise,” he blinks. “A refuge can so easily become a prison. And I… it appears that I have been unable to offer you the level of…violence you require.”  
Will is quietly sipping from his cup. He picks a skeletal leaf out of the fur on Conn’s back and twirls it meditatively between his fingers. Occasionally he spares a glance across the feast. Across the pale green vase of flowering twigs. 

The frets gradually clear.

“Hannibal,” Will replies, “if there is one person in the entire world who has given me exactly the level of violence I have required, under every circumstance, it is you. Whether or not I wanted it, or deserved it.”  
He glances at his wedding ring, which he always does, and leans forward. “I haven’t always loved the violence you have done. But I have always loved the violence that you _are_. When you are completely well, and I am completely recovered from you having been _unwell_ , then we can go someplace…meaningful, together. Ok?” 

Will stretches his arms, now, up and apart. Turns his head again, but this time, to look outwards.

The islands sit on a polished jade platter. It is precious, striated with greens and greys he will never tire of. If he stares hard enough into the stillness of it sometimes, he thinks he can see sea-dragons, carved deep and divine, diving down into the darkest part of the mineral.  
Will shivers, once. Yet, where is the danger?  
“Somewhere warm maybe,” he decides. “Somewhere full of pigs that won’t be missed.” 

Hannibal suddenly gets up to check on their bread. His heavy chair nearly topples. 

Will raises an eyebrow, and gestures, to make Hannibal come to him.  
Inexorably, he beckons, until Hannibal detours all the way around the table. 

Will watches him as he moves; grace returned. Strength renewed.  
And Hannibal’s eyes are so, so bright, and copper; an inhuman colour. 

His mouth is one of the cruellest Will has ever seen.  
He pulls Hannibal down so that he can kiss it. 

The dogs wander away at this point. Experience tells; there are unlikely to be titbits once this behaviour has begun.

Hannibal pulls open Will’s robe, which he hates. He pulls it wide, wide open so that he can see the skin beneath the odious material. The wind is bloodless and serpentine; it bites. 

If Will is cold, then so be it. He is not an invalid.

He pulls at it, roughly, until it gapes. Until he exposes Will. So that he can touch.  
He opens Will’s mouth, so that he can lick and flick himself at the inside. 

“You will always give me what I require, won’t you?” Will asks.  
He parts his legs further, so that Hannibal can push closer in.

Hannibal nods. “Obviously. Apparently, I always have done so, and apparently, I am too old to change.”

“Right. Such a sick, old man.” Will agrees, seriously. “Well, get busy and finish your baking.”  
He pushes Hannibal away, careless.  
“I’m starving. I want that bread. I want you to feed me breakfast.” 

Hannibal nods again, bright and hard, and straightens up, but Will waits until he is upright then tugs him back down. 

“Then, old man, you can take me upstairs and fuck me. Really fuck me, Hannibal. Really fucking hard.” He is breathing fire against Hannibal’s jaw, his throat. He feels Hannibal grow and flex beneath his hands. His skin splits, but it is beauty beneath, renewed and restored, and not ugliness. 

The copper shines, cruelly.  
And Will smiles back, serpentine. 

“And after that,” he promises, “maybe I’ll let you start planning our honeymoon.”


End file.
